BATON ROUGE - Parish officials approved a pay raise for Baton Rouge police officers Wednesday, the second for the department's personnel in a matter of months.

The East Baton Rouge Metro Council passed the three-percent raise for BRPD employees during Wednesday's meeting. 

The mayor's office said the raise will be funded through a $2 million allocation of state money and will be sustained thanks to "departmental efficiency measures" identified in a recent study of police operations.

Mayor Sharon Weston Broome said she's also introduced a proposal for the $2.4 million purchase of new police vehicles.

Another three-percent raise for BRPD officers was approved in December, with the mayor saying that increase was the first step toward bringing the department's pay closer to that of other agencies.